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James Dire: Observer from Illinois

On a recent autumn night with great seeing and transparency, I imaged NGC 16 with a wide-field view to capture it with myriad galaxies lying in the same field, four of which are in the New General Catalog (NGC). The telescope was a William Optics 132mm f/7 Apo. The imager was a SBIG ST-2000XCM CCD camera. The images here were created by combining 20 ten-minute exposures. The camera was self-guided on a Celestron CGEM II mount using MaximDL software for capture and guiding. One image below has labels showing some of the brighter galaxies in the field of view. 

After NGC 16, the brightest galaxy in the field of view is NGC 1. The New General Catalog lists deep space objects by right ascension. So NGC1 has the smallest right ascension of any object in the catalog: 00h 07m 15.9s (Epoch 2000). NGC1 is a magnitude 12.8 spiral galaxy 1.6×1.1 arcsec in size. Some spiral structure can be seen in large amateur telescopes and is even captured in my wide-field image.

Just below NGC 1 is NGC 2, a magnitude 14 spiral galaxy measuring 0.9×0.5 arcsec in size. At 220 and 330 million light years, respectively, NGC 1 and NGC 2 are farther away from us than NGC16. Whereas NGC1 presents itself more face on, NGC2 is more edge on.

The final NGC object on the image is NGC 22, a magnitude 14.8 spiral galaxy. NGC 22 is 1.2×0.7 arcsec in size. At magnitude 14.6, UGC69 is the next brightest galaxy. UGC69 is about the same angular size as NGC1 and at the same distance. However, at nearly two magnitudes fainter, UGC69 as well as NGC 22 are difficult to see in telescopes smaller than 14-inches. Despite the scale, some spiral structure is visible in my image for both of these faint galaxies.

There are dozens of other galaxies in my image. Most appear as tiny, dim star-like dots. Some appear elongated giving away their galactic shape. Three I have labeled are PGC1811465 (mag. 16.7), PGC212478  (mag. 16.7), and PGC182172 (mag.16.8). I was able to pick out galaxies down to magnitude 19 in the image.

Supporting notes and information to follow later…

Pencil sketch by Roger Ivester:

Pencil Sketch by Uwe Glahn: Observer from Germany

NGC 1 and NGC 2: 27-inch reflector @ 293x

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